Azure Caching (Preview) host autodiscovery hangs on some machines

Question

We have 3 development boxes with

Visual Studio 2012
Azure SDK 1.7
Azure Caching (Preview)

We've downloaded one of the Sample applications for Azure Caching (Preview) and ran it, and one 1 of the development boxes it works, but on 2 the cache host autodiscovery hangs infinitely.

On the hanging machines, the 2 cache services seem to install correctly - after emulator deployment, two cache processes (the discovery service and the cache service?) are listening on various ports. Also, the firewall rule for the cache seems to be added and deleted. The only problem is that as soon as a DataCache() is instantiated, everything hangs forever. There is no socket time-out either.

There are no obvious error messages in dftmp for the cache plugin, and there is an ETL log file being created.

Co-located or dedicated caching seems to make no difference.

Since there seems to be no documentation on how to not use autodiscovery, but manual host specification, we haven't been able to try whether that would resolve the situation. Perhaps autodiscovery is the only allowed option with Azure Caching (Preview)?

The symptoms are similar to this question:

social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsazuredevelopment/thread/8580689a-a1a1-4db7-bba9-f42c1a90e0db

However, we've never had AppFabric installed, and CacheInstaller does not fail to load assemblies.

Answer 1

Did you double-check the identifier attribute in the autodiscovery node and the value of the ConfigStoreConnectionString setting in the service configuration? If either is set incorrectly, the caching server will have isues.  

Answer 2

Did you double-check the identifier attribute in the autodiscovery node and the value of the ConfigStoreConnectionString setting in the service configuration? If either is set incorrectly, the caching server will have isues.  

Yes, the same code and configuration works on one of the development machines. If I change the instance name or modify the config store connection strings, autodiscovery does not hang but fails immediately.

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KDX.ENC

Answer 3

hmm.. Presuming that you are using the development emulator for the config store, have you verified the workstation having problems has a good, running instance of the development storage emulator?

Answer 4

hmm.. Presuming that you are using the development emulator for the config store, have you verified the workstation having problems has a good, running instance of the development storage emulator?

Yes, other types of Storage work well. Is there anything in particular I could look for in the cluster config storage to see why it might not be working? 

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KDX.ENC

Answer 5

Hi,

Since it works on one machine but not on the other two, it is very likely to be an environment issue. Please try to setup a clean new machine and see if it works. If it works, then install other software one by one, and if something goes wrong, you can identify the conflicting software. If all work fine after you install all those software, please check your OS settings.

Best Regards,

Ming Xu.

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Answer 6

Hi,

Since it works on one machine but not on the other two, it is very likely to be an environment issue. Please try to setup a clean new machine and see if it works. If it works, then install other software one by one, and if something goes wrong, you can identify the conflicting software. If all work fine after you install all those software, please check your OS settings.

Best Regards,

Ming Xu.

---

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What do you mean by "your OS settings"? Is there anything particular we should be on the look-out for?

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KDX.ENC

Answer 7

Hi,

I don't have any specific ideas. But since it works on one machine, it means your code is correct. So it is needed to check for environment issues. Since you can't find any error messages, the only solution in my mind is to compare the environment of the working machine and the not working machine. Anything from a conflicting software to a group policy can be responsible for the behavior. So instead of starting with the non-working machine which may have hundreds of software installed and a lot of configuration changes, it is easier to start with a fresh machine.

Best Regards,

Ming Xu.

---

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Answer 8

Hello KDX.ENC,

I had a similar error, because I was using ExtraSmall instances instead of small(minimum).

Answer 9

Hello KDX.ENC,

I had a similar error, because I was using ExtraSmall instances instead of small(minimum).

The instances are the same size on the working and non-working development machines (small).

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KDX.ENC

Answer 10

Hi,

I don't have any specific ideas. But since it works on one machine, it means your code is correct. So it is needed to check for environment issues. Since you can't find any error messages, the only solution in my mind is to compare the environment of the working machine and the not working machine. Anything from a conflicting software to a group policy can be responsible for the behavior. So instead of starting with the non-working machine which may have hundreds of software installed and a lot of configuration changes, it is easier to start with a fresh machine.

Best Regards,

Ming Xu.

---

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If you have any feedback about my replies, please contact [e-mail].
Microsoft One Code Framework

Okay. But it feels like conflicting software that conflicts in a way that Azure Caching (Preview) doesn't detect is a problem.

Could it be Office 2013?

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KDX.ENC

Answer 11

Hello KDX.ENC,

Check this first:

<autoDiscover isEnabled="true" identifier="YOUR_WEBROLE_NAME" />

Second:

I had conflicts with the Azure Caching DLL's

Latest Version=101.0.0.0, but some of them where asking 1.0 version

Check for these three:
1) Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.Client
2) Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.Core
3) Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.dll 

Aslo KDX.ENC, don't forget this is a preview version, it's not even beta.

Mario

Answer 12

Hello KDX.ENC,

Check this first:

<autoDiscover isEnabled="true" identifier="YOUR_WEBROLE_NAME" />

Second:

I had conflicts with the Azure Caching DLL's

Latest Version=101.0.0.0, but some of them where asking 1.0 version

Check for these three:
1) Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.Client
2) Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.Core
3) Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.dll 

Aslo KDX.ENC, don't forget this is a preview version, it's not even beta.

Mario

The identifier is correct - otherwise none of the development machines would be able to use the cache cluster.

We've never had any versions of the assemblies installed, and the numbers seem to add up. It's the same version loaded via nuget for each development environment.

I know it's a preview. And I realize these mysterious errors are why they're not shipping it yet. But I'm hoping they can still be solved. :)

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KDX.ENC

Answer 13

Hi KDX,

I am one of the developers from Azure cache, could you let me know exactly where there is a hang ? The autodiscovery is a complete client side codeflow which uses Azure environment, once auto discovery happens communication starts with the servers. If autodiscovery would fail, it should throw, there is nothing to wait infinitely on. There is no cache discovery service we use.

Since your client app hangs, could you take a dump and point to the offending method ? could you also check event viewer  (Windows Azure and Application System Services ) for any exceptions you maybe seeing. Does it never return from the DataCache call ? Do you have any 3rd party firewall installed ?

Also is the failure also seen on the cloud or just devfabric  ?

Answer 14

Hi KDX,

I am one of the developers from Azure cache, could you let me know exactly where there is a hang ? The autodiscovery is a complete client side codeflow which uses Azure environment, once auto discovery happens communication starts with the servers. If autodiscovery would fail, it should throw, there is nothing to wait infinitely on. There is no cache discovery service we use.

Since your client app hangs, could you take a dump and point to the offending method ? could you also check event viewer  (Windows Azure and Application System Services ) for any exceptions you maybe seeing. Does it never return from the DataCache call ? Do you have any 3rd party firewall installed ?

Also is the failure also seen on the cloud or just devfabric  ?

For me the problem was caused by the installation of Office 2013.  Removing Office 2013 from my machine solved the hang issues.

Pete

Answer 15

Can someone tell me if the new version released today (1.8) is compatible with Office 2013?

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Pete

Answer 16

Can someone tell me if the new version released today (1.8) is compatible with Office 2013?

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Pete

I am using Office 13 together with cache on my machine.

Is it reproable ? If yes, please get us a dump of your issue.

Answer 17

Can someone tell me if the new version released today (1.8) is compatible with Office 2013?

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Pete

I am using Office 13 together with cache on my machine.

Is it reproable ? If yes, please get us a dump of your issue.

Same problem with Office 2013 RTM (and Caching 1.7).

Haven't tried *without* Office. Also haven't tried Caching 1.8.

Reproable, here's a "break all" at a hang in the emulator followed by a "save dump":

http://sprend.com/download.htm?C=7f5cd64c151141efa8afa3f3b69cac25

Answer 18

Can someone tell me if the new version released today (1.8) is compatible with Office 2013?

---

Pete

I am using Office 13 together with cache on my machine.

Is it reproable ? If yes, please get us a dump of your issue.

Same problem with Office 2013 RTM (and Caching 1.7).

Haven't tried *without* Office. Also haven't tried Caching 1.8.

Reproable, here's a "break all" at a hang in the emulator followed by a "save dump":

http://sprend.com/download.htm?C=7f5cd64c151141efa8afa3f3b69cac25

Hi,

Was unable to get useful info there.

Can you share your app config and cache client code ?

Also, can you check

also can you share any events from this channel :

(Application And Services Logs -> Microsoft
-> Windows -> Application Server-System Services -> Admin)

And windows Azure channel ?

Answer 19

Can someone tell me if the new version released today (1.8) is compatible with Office 2013?

---

Pete

I am using Office 13 together with cache on my machine.

Is it reproable ? If yes, please get us a dump of your issue.

Same problem with Office 2013 RTM (and Caching 1.7).

Haven't tried *without* Office. Also haven't tried Caching 1.8.

Reproable, here's a "break all" at a hang in the emulator followed by a "save dump":

http://sprend.com/download.htm?C=7f5cd64c151141efa8afa3f3b69cac25

Hi,

Was unable to get useful info there.

Can you share your app config and cache client code ?

Also, can you check

also can you share any events from this channel :

(Application And Services Logs -> Microsoft
-> Windows -> Application Server-System Services -> Admin)

And windows Azure channel ?

I tried with 1.8 instead, and now it works!

If you want a repro to find out why it didn't work in 1.7, do this

1. Install Windows 8, Office 2013 Preview, Azure SDK 1.7, Visual Studio 2012

2. Run the Azure Caching Preview Session State Provider Sample from MSDN

3. Hang on startup

Sorry the dump was unhelpful. Thanks for all your help!